In recent days, Game Freak has come under fire for various grievances fans have with the upcoming Pokemon titles, Sword and Shield. Following the controversy of only a select amount of Pokemon being in the game at all, Game Freak was then criticized for reusing animations and character models from previous Pokemon games. However, these claims appear to be untrue, as a previous interview with Junichi Masuda and Shigeru Ohmori confirms that Game Freak has had to create every Pokemon model in Sword and Shield "from scratch". The June 2019 interview, which went largely unnoticed due to its lack of English translation, was also not referenced in the "official response" from Game Freak two weeks ago, regarding the Pokedex issue.

Due to the nature of the Nintendo Switch's better hardware and smoother framerates, the 3DS-era Pokemon models and animations were unable to be directly transferred over to engine that Sword and Shield are running on, so the team over at Game Freak had to remake every Pokemon model. This was apparently especially difficult for the team, who has had their normal amount of developers split between two major projects: Sword/Shield and Town. During the development of Sun and Moon, Game Freak was "barely able to" import all 809 Pokemon into that game with a full dedicated team as it was. This, coupled with the daunting task of balancing each and every Pokemon was what led to Junichi Masuda deciding to "choose quality over quantity", when it came to choosing which Pokemon would make it into the Galar Dex. In the interview he says, "The decision is sad. Of course I wanted to bring all the Pokemon in if I could do it, but this was a decision I had to make eventually".

Masuda even joked about the matter responding that the Pokemon that won't show up in the game are thinking, "This region is too cold. I think I'll stay at home this time."

When it comes to the matter of adding subsequent Pokemon in post-launch updates, Game Freak says that they are considering the idea, but are undecided at the moment. He also further explained that the Dynamaxing and Gigantamaxing features require additional 3D models from each Pokemon, and are not simply resized versions of their existing assets.

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[Deleted member 414991]

What do they mean that they were barely able to import all pokemon into SuMo? Weren't those the same models from X and Y?

 

[DJPlace]

first less pokemon now this... i hope 8th gen fails for after all this.

 

[Deleted User]

So... how many people believe this is bullshit? Because I do.

 

[RedoLane]

Well, it's pretty obvious, considering it jumped from the 3DS to the Switch.
Porting the models would make them look very awkward.
EDIT: i just dug my own grave ._.

 

[DSoryu]

Complete bullshit, even the character animations are the same, there are many videos on youtube demonstrating that these are indeed reused, will find them and post those here later.

 

[Darkitz]

i guess 'Project Town' is/was Let's Go ?

 

[GalladeGuy]

So either it's bullshit and they were caught lying, or it's true and they admitted that they're too incompetent to transfer perfectly good models from one system to another.

 

[eyeliner]

Complete bullshit, even the character animations are the same, there are many videos on youtube demonstrating that these are indeed reused, will find them and post those here later.

Fight the good fight, son!

 

[Lacius]

1. Based on the footage we've seen, there's good reason to believe Game Freak is lying (or embellishing their minor edits).
2. They intentionally created the 3DS models to be largely futureproof, so it would be incredibly stupid of them to remake everything.

 

[GalladeGuy]

i guess 'Project Town' is/was Let's Go ?

Project Town is a non-Pokemon RPG that they've been working on for a while now.

 

[chartube12]

i guess 'Project Town' is/was Let's Go ?

No! It’s a new game from Game Freak. They are trying to start a new franchise unconnected to Pokémon. It’s very possible they are trying to move on from Pokémon.

 

[grey72]

Now that they're (most probably) lying, I can only imagine the shitshow this gen is gonna be

 

[Idontknowwhattoputhere]

Fuck.You.GameFreak

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Didn't people already say this is just the result of a mistranslation of the interview and the 3DS models are actually being used? I could've sworn this was already covered ages ago, people have done various "comparisons" of the models shown in in-game trailers and such that basically all but prove they're the exact same.

 

[Deleted User]

Didn't people already say this is just the result of a mistranslation of the interview and the 3DS models are actually being used? I could've sworn this was already covered ages ago, people have done various "comparisons" of the models shown in in-game trailers and such that basically all but prove they're the exact same.

That would make their case even worse then because if they are already using the models from the 3ds, it means they can port them. And the work was already there.

 

[raxadian]

the Dynamaxing and Gigantamaxing features require additional 3D models from each Pokemon, and are not simply resized versions of their existing assets.​

Then just import the Pokemon without those. Is not like every Pokemon in Sun and Moon could do Mega evolution.

 

[Deleted User]

i dont get it

 

[DKB]

Such bullshit artists.

 

[Megadriver94]

GIF related, Masuda!